


full circle

by butimnotdeadyet



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dont read if you like Pakku, Gen, M/M, like wtf, nothing bad happens, this is me bitching about how little sense gran-gran and pukka getting together makes, zrb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butimnotdeadyet/pseuds/butimnotdeadyet
Summary: The love of his life was a cruel, vindictive man.And Bato loved it.---slight divergence bc I said soBasically, after the war Pakku thinks it's a great idea to travel south to re-propose to the woman that literally fled a country to keep from marrying him.Too bad he's working off some misinformation.
Relationships: Bato & Kanna, Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Kanna & Hakoda
Comments: 8
Kudos: 156





	full circle

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of that completely ridiculous exchange during the finale with Granpakku, I wrote this.

The love of his life was a cruel, vindictive man. 

And Bato loved it. 

  
  


Bato was ashamed to say that he didn't notice it at first. He was too distracted making sure that the hold was fully stocked and the crew accounted for. If asked, Bato would swear that there was something cursed about this route - to and from the Fire nation _sounded_ like a simple journey, long but not particulate strenuous, but went it came to resupplying in foreign waters, plus loading up with trade samples to take back to the council _and_ adding an additional boat of Northern Tribe citizens and representatives, it meant the Bato was functioning at the threshold of overt hostility. 

But it was fine. At least the Northerners had agreed to meet them halfway, sailing to the archipelago by themselves to join with the Fleet for guidance along now unfamiliar tides. All was well until Bato looked across the docks and realized what Hakoda had done. 

Hakoda, his commander, his chief, his love, had done something that Bato thought impossible. 

The High Chieftain of the Southern Water Tribe had laid the groundwork for an international incident. 

(Which was truly something to be in awe of, Bato thought, considering that the reason Hakoda was inside making nice with the advisors and staff in the palace while his Second sorted out the ships was that neither of them wanted to put too much faith in Bato’s nerves and a room full of firebenders. Not that they really had much to worry in terms of their standing in the Fire Court given that both Hakoda’s kids were friends and confidants of their ruling lord.)

And he just about dropped the handle of the chest he was helping a crewman load onto their lead ship when he saw who was walking down the gank planked of the Northern’s ship, a self-contained curse of contempt. 

Pakku. 

Even with never having met the man, Bato could tell. Katara and Sokka had been very … specific with their descriptions.

(His ears still rang with Koda’s laughter after hearing the words ‘he’s a spineless tool of the patriarchy who uses Silver Eel oil to slick down his stupid little mustache, but he can  _ bend kinda good _ so we’re supposed to get on our knees and present our amoral Southern hinds to him’ come out of Sokka’s mouth. Possibly even better was Katara’s hushed ‘Next time I see him, we’re going round two’.)

This meant that Hakoda, leader of their people and a great proponent of rekindling the relation of the sister tribes, had  _ personally invited the single most inflammatory man possible  _ to travel with them to the South Pole. 

The love of his life was a cruel, vindictive man. 

And Bato loved it. 

  
  
  


The trip was uneventful, due mostly to the fact that while the Northerners did fold into the Southern Fleet, they remained on their own boat, far away from prolonged exposure to the ‘roguish’ ranks of the ancestral ex-pats. 

Hadoka, throughout all three weeks of their voyage, presented no reasonable defense. He talked of their plans once they hit port, of the feasts and rivalry he had planned before he left. He talked about the dozen young Northerners who were visiting-with-the-possibility-of-staying, mostly young benders but a few sailors and educators as well. He even talked about the trade licenses that he hoped to get approved by the leadership. 

He said nothing about the powder keg that would greet them as soon as they offloaded. 

  
  
  


Making port went smoothly enough, no major hiccups in docking with eight ships instead of seven, though the Northerns’ captain, Kuttaro, seemed conflicted at their lack of ice-crafted walls and channels. Not that he voiced as much, but Bato had become very well versed in reading ‘what do these simpletons think they're doing’ on strange faces. Watching that same expression melt off of Earth General faces as they watched countless Imperial Warships sink to the bottom of the sea had been a highlight. He was lucky enough to witness the change again when his crew and the dockworkers had not just Captain Kuttaro’s ship, but every boat in the fleet unloaded in record time. 

As soon as the final crate was whisked to the storehouse, the local sailors started to disperse into the crowded, greeting family and friends with as much gusto as the end of the war. They were all still getting used to the idea that an expedition could return with as many men ( _ as many people _ , Bato could hear Katara correcting) as had left. 

Bato was standing on the central dock waiting for Koda and taking a moment to appreciate the updated metal railings along the street above when he heard the verbal equivalent of a fuse being lit.

“Kanna.”

He didn’t have to turn to know who spoke, or shouted, really considering the call was loud enough to carry the length of the docks and farther. Instead he skimmed the row of elders gathered on the concourse above the shoreline, waiting to meet the newcomers. It didn't even take a full pass to make out Kanna. 

She stood at the center-front of the group, as was her right as ruling elder and mother of the Fleet Commander. She had pulled out her best anorak - deep purple with a gray leopardhound trim and silver embroidery that Bato and Hakoda had given her for her birthday - and, if his eyes were not mistaken, had knitted new mittens to match. She looked the picture of a woman excited to see her family come home. 

Until she saw who had called her name. 

In the same moment as realization dawn on Kanna’s face, almost as if by design, Bato felt an arm slip around his waist. 

“So,” Hakoda began, barely discernible over the chuckles that he was trying to staunch, “how long do you think it will take?”

“For what, Chief?” It was perhaps a little cruel, bringing rank into what was clearly a personal moment, but Hakoda was deserving of a little treatment-in-kind. It worked, Hakoda scoffed in his ear and pulled them closer together. “Your mother to forgive you for bringing her ex-fiance to the South, or me, for having to put up with this ridiculous charade you’ve masterminded?”

(It was cheap, to be sure, teasing Koda so soon after making land. There was a longstanding ban on interpersonal activity in public spaces when they were at sea. Even a crew like theirs could only handle so much with civility. Ashore they were as free to touch and hold as ever.)

  
  


“There has been no charade! The master’s doom was laid by his own presumptions.”

“Oh, yes. And the narrative you spun of the poor, lonely Elder Kanna, who had ‘never been settled in life as she planned, never found love as true as the one she left in the North’?”

“Oh, is that what I said-?”

“Word for word.”

“Hmm, I suppose I may have left some things out.”

“How forgetful of you.”

Hadoka was  _ sniggering  _ now, while trying to tuck himself in Bato’s shadow. It didn’t work. Kanna was sharper than most gave her credit; her eyes cut immediately from Pakku, who was trying and failing to weave his way between crews and greeting parties to get to the stairs, to her son.

Her son, who was making a horrible nuisance of himself by trying to hide behind Bato’s sleeve with his entire body shaking from poorly-contained mirth. 

Bato shook himself free, casting Hakoda away with an elbow to his ribs. Gentle, but more than enough to cause the Respectable High Cheif to stumble into Captain Kattazo and almost take them both into the water below. 

Okay, maybe not  _ gentle _ .

“Honestly, Hakoda. She may cast you into the deep herself. Tether an anchor to you and sail you out past the shelf.”

“That she may, but as long as it's not before-”

Hakoda was cut off by the sound of rushing water. Pakku had apparently had his fill of the bustle at the docks and had decided to make use of the elements around him - a water spurt burst forth and Pakku stepped on to propel himself onto the landing above.

The display of bending - something that Bato could only call pretentious and he was sure the master thought was powerful - lasted only moments before the bay calmed again and Pakku and Kanna were face to face.

They could not hear the exchange from the docks, a misfortune that Koda moved to amend immediately. One firm declaration and the bodies in front of them freed a footpath straight to the concourse that the two venerated tribesmen tore down like with a near manic gleam. 

“- that I trained the Avatar and your granddaughter in the North. And, dear Kanna, when Commander Hakota told me of all that you have endured all the years alone in the South! I have come in hopes that as the bonds between our tribes strengthen, you will wear my carving once again. Let us be the example that tradition does not need to be set aside in this new era - that a man and a woman can love each other with the blessing of their tribe, to be a model to the new generation of what a blessed couple should be-!”

_ Slap! _

Had Bato not been looking for it, he may have missed it. It wasn’t just Kanna’s eyes that were fast; the woman could skin an entire tigerseal while waiting for prunes to boil, so it was no surprise to Bato or Hakoda when all they could see was the flash of a newly bared hand landing sharply against the waterbending master’s cheek and retreating just as quickly. 

Hakoda, exhibiting a great amount of restraint, fell to his knees in breathless, silent laughter while Bato could only gape. 

Pakku reeled back at the hit, unhurt but horribly stunned by the blow. From where they stood, roughly skiff’s length, Bato could make out that Kanna’s mouth was fixed tight like it had been when he and Koda were boys and lost  _ both _ the good fishing poles to a hulltooth whale.

And she continued her uninterrupted stare for long enough for Bato's ridiculous partner to regain control and stand - gasping that he could die a happy man, having seen his mother brutalize a Northern - just in time, of course, for Pakku to speak out.

“Kanna! What-!”

“Well, I see that you are still as strong-willed as that granddaughter of yours!”

“ _ That granddaughter _ who you refused to train.”

Where it seemed that Pakku could not help but have his voice heard throughout the park, Kanna kept her volume as in check as ever. 

“Oh, yes, Katara was quite complete in her telling of events. Though I haven’t considered you much these past decades, I had hoped that you and your tribesman had overcome such baseless, unfair traditions. You asked for my hand once before, Pakku of the Northern Water Tribe, and I said yes out of fear. I am strong enough now to refuse.”

“Kanna, since your leaving I have never found anyone-”

“Then you have not grown from the sixteen year old boy you once were. I suggest you board your ship and remain there until the return journey unless you wish to be the reason that my son, High Chief Hako _ da,  _ has to declare this visit a loss.”

Bato watched as Pakku attempted to follow Kanna’s sweeping wave towards the crowd, only for his eyes to land on Koda and Bato. 

“Your… son.”

The man may be close-minded and ignorant, but it seemed he was not completely without intelligence. Bato could see his eyes widen as several fragments slipped into place in the man’s head. 

  
  


“Yes, I am proud to say that he takes after his father, a Southerner, through and through! Always so forward-thinking and accepting of those who are kind, but different, and so willing to recognize and uplift true talent. It is so fortunate that he has kept me abreast of the happenings in this wide world of ours. He has met so many interesting people, had so many enlightening conversations.”

And with that, Bato could see the whole narrative play out. Somehow, Kanna had been made aware of Bato and Hakoda’s meeting with Pakku after the armistice. And the conversation that would forever color Pakku as an uninformed and unimaginative thinker, bound too fast to the ways of the traditional North to ever be a worthwhile emissary to the revolutionary South. 

Pakku had met them off the coast of Caldera months ago, for Zuko’s coronation, and had greeted them with not an unwilling ear for reconciliation, but as Sokka, Katar, and Aang were all within the capitol and unable to … smooth the conversation along in the way that the burgeoning diplomats had proved themselves apt, Pakku quickly fell into a pattern of offering ‘advice’ to Bato and Hakoda as proper introductions fell to the wayside. Helpful little suggestions that ranged from gutless defenses of North’s isolation, to near-attacks on ‘what the South deems a proper marriage’, to bemoaning how so many of their ‘good healing girls’ had been making plans to travel to the South since Spring. It had gone on for what felt like hours, but Hakoda assured him was only a few degrees’ lost. 

So began months of writing back and forth with Pakku never realizing that the ‘Bo and Koda’ Southerner shipmates that he had met in the bay were in fact the very tribal leaders that he wrote to (misaddressed, Bato rolled his eyes every time his love waved yet another “Commander Hakota” letter under his nose) twice a month until his efforts were deemed too small a measure and an Elder Morrok took over. Funnily enough, Bato noticed that after responding to Morrok  _ once _ , the elder’s future greetings changed to mirror Hakoda’s official sign off. 

“You told her?”

“Of course. If she had heard about half of what he’d said from someone else first, she would have skinned me.”

“Like a tiger seal.” Bato agreed. 

Kanna, having left a thoroughly shamed but aggressively straight-backed Pakku in her wake, marched towards her son. 

“And what do you have to say for yourself,  _ Chieftain?” _

Hakoda stepped forward to wrap his mother in a hug.

“Mother, I only ask that the next time the children run off with the destined savior of the world, you send one of us a letter.”

  
  


Perhaps ‘cruel’ and ‘vindictive’ were too harsh of words to describe his love, but Bato would never doubt his dedication to payback. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing that I have published in so long holy shit. I completely blame my own random shower thoughts and the folks on discord for gassing me up thx
> 
> (the Hakota thing came from me watching the Bato episode in season 1 and realized that the subs said 'Kota' instead of 'Koda' and it made me laugh.)
> 
> (the crew are not homophobic, they have just caught H&B making out way too many times and are Very Tired of it.)


End file.
